13 replies to this topic

[Casanova]

I am interested in why you want to become immortal, or if not immortal, to live for thousands of years?
What is your motive. What are your reasons?

[Cyto]

First, Casanova I would like to thank you for adding a new critical eye to Imminst.

As for a disclaimer I will say Immoralists all share the want for immortality but the rest is variant so others will have their own subsidiary reasons.

As for me I would like to see the face of my parents, since they lack any faith in me to do anything, I want to say: "How does it feel to of made the best investment of all?"

Beside my little grudge, I think genetics can take me far. So I will spend as much time as possible to improve pluripotent stem cells - making them able to endure many problems. So a motivation for perfection and stability, in some areas.

Now, how do I put the action where my mouth is? I am on a schedule for a degree in Cell and Molecular Biology and I can't turn back since I have taken half of the classes required only for this major. After this I have a masters program in Gene Expression and I have to go if I want to be an expert in my desired field and to get a good job.

And let it be known that my parents have no idea about this so when I tell them...if its at my atheist wedding or whatever - they may have a stroke finally (after all my previous life) getting to know the real son they had all that time.

As for anything after stem cells...I can't tell.

Edited by XxDoubleHelixX, 07 June 2003 - 10:11 AM.

[Discarnate]

Allow me to second DoubleHelix's thanks - you put up some good questions!

I don't consider myself an immortalist, to be honest. I'd love to be able to be reasonably assured that I could live as long as I want, but I do believe that I'd either be an accident case or would eventually have enough. I don't KNOW that second bit, but that's my current understanding.

I consider it likely that I might end up being an accident case because I like to *LIVE*. I enjoy walking in the woods, and don't expect to not do so. There're risks doing that - the odd bear, rabid raccoon, falling limb, etc - which could prevent my eternal enjoyment of less risky things. Oh, well.

Similarly, I like people. Yet most forms of death today are DIRECTLY related to interacting with people. You can't die of lung cancer from smoking if you don't go to the store, or the bar, or whatever. You can't get hit by a bus if you're not on paved roads. (OK, ok, you can, but the odds go WAAAAY down.)

I'm not gonna give up the woods, nor the people - if anything, my cumulative exposure to risks will be up if I live longer. . . and therefore, over a long enough time, I'll meet that bus. Or widowmaker. Or whatever.

Assuming, of course, that the tech (in whatever flavor) comes around...

-Discarnate

[Utnapishtim]

My position is very similiar.

I don't want to die in the forseeable future.
If that will ever change is useless speculation at this point.

I fully expect to die one day...
But I hope that the day that this occurs is still unimaginably far away.

A mere 50-70 more years on the other hand, is VERY imaginable, and frighteningly brief.

Edited by Utnapishtim, 07 June 2003 - 02:52 PM.

[Sophianic]

I am interested in why you want to become immortal, or if not immortal, to live for thousands of years?

One cannot become immortal in a universe where the conditions for sustaining intelligent, conscious life are forever contingent ~ in other words, "the unknown" is an inherent feature of the universe, no matter who or what you are ~ or seek to become. Intelligent, conscious life can, however, continually seek to improve the conditions that make it ever more likely that it can subsist and thrive forever. A subtle, but important difference.

What is your motive. What are your reasons?

To fully realize the potential of consciousness in perpetuity, in relation to existence. To fully realize my own potential and to enjoy my life to the fullest each and every day for as long as the universe can sustain intelligent, conscious life ~ or for as long as intelligent, conscious life can sustain the universe if or when that becomes necessary (if or when it acquires the power to do so).

[hughbristic]

I am interested in why you want to become immortal, or if not immortal, to live for thousands of years?
What is your motive. What are your reasons?

Why do you want to eat? Why do you want to sleep? To me it is like these--a fundamental hardwired drive. I think it is so for just about every other living person too. I don't know of many people, even very old ones, who don't want to keep living, unless of course, they are in excruciating pain. Even the vast majority of those who are in excruciating pain and wish to die believe in, or wish they could believe in, a continued existence in some supernatural realm where their pain is gone. All the other reasons, enjoying life, self-actualization. etc., strike me as ex post facto rationalizations (no disrespect intended) for the simple fact that we desire to keep living. Why must we have a justification for wanting to live?

Hugh

[Sophianic]

I don't know of many people, even very old ones, who don't want to keep living, unless of course, they are in excruciating pain. Even the vast majority of those who are in excruciating pain and wish to die believe in, or wish they could believe in, a continued existence in some supernatural realm where their pain is gone.  All the other reasons, enjoying life, self-actualization. etc., strike me as ex post facto rationalizations (no disrespect intended) for the simple fact that we desire to keep living.  Why must we have a justification for wanting to live?

To simply exist, to live simply, to live fully ~ are not synonymous. Certainly, no one requires a reason (justification) to exist, but there are many who require reasons (motivation) to live, whether simply or fully ... or indefinitely. But the desire to live indefinitely may imply a desire to simply exist, or to live simply, or to live fully. For me, a desire to live indefinitely implies all three, at different times, in different places, for different reasons. Although we don't need a justification for wanting to live, we do need sound motivation to keep us from dwelling on whether we need a justification. To live fully and to realize your potential answer the need for motivation; they embellish the fact that we need no justification for wanting to live.

[hughbristic]

To simply exist, to live simply, to live fully ~ are not synonymous.  Certainly, no one requires a reason (justification) to exist, but there are many who require reasons (motivation) to live, whether simply or fully ... or indefinitely.  But the desire to live indefinitely may imply a desire to simply exist, or to live simply, or to live fully.  For me, a desire to live indefinitely implies all three, at different times, in different places, for different reasons.  Although we don't need a justification for wanting to live, we do need sound motivation to keep us from dwelling on whether we need a justification.  To live fully and to realize your potential answer the need for motivation; they embellish the fact that we need no justification for wanting to live.

I guess I was interpreting it as less of an existentialist sort of question. That sort of question is like asking "Why do anything?" or "What is my pupose?" to which your answers are as good as any.

I was responding to the simpler question, because implied in it was the unstated asumptiion that wanting to live was some strange freak's dream rather than a universal human drive. I think a better question is "What motivates people to ask such odd questions?"

Hugh

[Casanova]

First, thanks Double, and Discarnate, for the compliments.
I like to stir things up, and especially in places where the "smug" level is too high.

As for the hubristic crack, by Hugh:

wanting to live was some strange freak's dream rather than a universal human drive

well, you can't win em all.

My question is not an odd one. Of course we all value life, and living. If there is any freakishness involved, it is the "desire" to live forever, in a physical, material, body.
That is what I am focusing on, here, that desire to cheat death, to become eternal.
Is it based on fear? Fear of what?

It seems to me that those who are terrified of death, believe that death is nothingness, the end of of their consciousness for eternity; oblivion.
This would be the view of an aethist; one who believes that matter-energy is all that there is, and that life, and human consciousness, are the results of chance and necessity, and that there is no designer, or God.

So if there is nothingness when we die, of course we will crave eternal life. Who wants to plunge into nothingness?
But, aethism, and materialsm, are just belief systems, with there own forms of superstition; the great yawning nothingness; kind of like the tooth fairy.

Desperation; a sweating desperation; a hand wringing, teeth gnashing cry of despair is heard on these Forums; "I don't want to die, "I DON'T WANT TO DIE!"

But, as someone else said, above; living eternally, in a physical, material, universe, is not possible. The odds are against, you; probability is against you; you'll eventually croak in one way, or another.

You are going to die someday, sometime, whether is is tomorrow, or a million years from now. And if it is a million years from now, that last day of your life is going to be filled with as much existential horror, and dread, of death, as you feel now.
All you are doing is postponing the inevitable, you are in denial.

Edited by Casanova, 11 June 2003 - 06:25 AM.

[Cyto]

Yes, it is a fear of death (neuronal synapse ceasing). This fear drives people, like us at the Immortality Institute, to take part in seeing that extended life is available before our bodies fail. This of course doesn’t mean that one has to be a researcher but the mere reinforcement from others can help to keep the quest alive. The Methuselah Mouse Prize is a good example; course dying patients are the biggest supporters.

If you mean by chance that we are the result of environmental mutations, bacteria, virons and sexual conjugation then yes, we are.

Belief is definitionaly tied in with faith and faith has the record of assertion without evidence. Since life extension is nothing but a science we should stick to the correct term as theory. It is a theory because we can extend life in other organisms but in order for it to be a fact we need to pull it off on ourselves. You are building up “nothingness” to seem like it actually is something – but to clarify we mean neuronal synapse ceasing, since we are not really going to nothing.

Describing us as some person awaiting our death sentence, as if it will happen within the hour, is not a fair illustration. We want to fight the death so many are comfortable with. You know the comfortable death, living life and then you die – nothing like having to fend for your life from a vicious mugger, or is it? Can the acceptance of death really be all about comfort zone? I think so; we simply identify this and are working on doing something about it.

It is true, the odds are against you in trying to live eternally, if you try and view it all from now. Immortality is the constant goal – life extension is the key to maintaining this goal. As we would live on longer advancements would be sought and implemented to lessen the ability to die. Taking it day-by-day and advancement-by-advancement we do have the potential to make death a "hard to do."

As for your last attempt to sum us up: Math has its points but when you say, “you will die” doesn’t account for the advancements in abilities to keep alive. Two good examples is with the researchers in Canada’s University Health Network which have found a hematopoietic stem cell which can half regeneration time of RBCs or current research into protein signaling for wound healing: can upregulating it make the would heal faster?

I know you can say “what about a bus hitting you?” Well if I had a completely secure life, where nothing ever “bad” could happen to me again, and a person had my life all planned out – that would be a very...very dull existence.

[Casanova]

As we would live on longer advancements would be sought and implemented to lessen the ability to die.

You mentioned something about FAITH?

So you have "faith" that science, and technology, will keep you living, on, and on, and on?

Here is one dictionary definition of "faith":

faith (f³th) n. 1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, an idea, or a thing.

In this case, idea.

So your whole edifice rests on faith?

What were you before you were born; nothing, or something?

[Cyto]

Giving the definition in full context from Merriam Webster on aol...

Faith 1 a : allegiance to duty or a person (1) : fidelity to one's promises (2) : sincerity of intentions
2 a (1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) : complete trust 3 : something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs

...all I see is faith riddled with religious tone. But even if I were to choose idea...

Idea 1 a : a transcendent entity that is a real pattern of which existing things are imperfect representations b : a standard of perfection : IDEAL c : a plan for action : DESIGN 2 : archaic : a visible representation of a conception : a replica of a pattern
3 a : obsolete : an image recalled by memory b : an indefinite or unformed conception c : an entity (as a thought, concept, sensation, or image) actually or potentially present to consciousness 4 : a formulated thought or opinion 5 : whatever is known or supposed about something 6 : the central meaning or chief end of a particular action or situation 7 : Christian Science : an image in Mind

Idea is not specific enough; idea is too vague for this specific area. Health science was generated to increase life. So it is a science and therefore will be referred to by scientific terminology.

Theory
1 : the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another
3 : the general or abstract principles of a body of fact, a science, or an art
5 : a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena
6 a : a body of theorems presenting a concise systematic view of a subject
synonym see HYPOTHESIS

Since science is all over theory and medical science is making sure plenty of punks stay around - I theorize the array of mainstream medical sciences will provide more advances to live though tougher situations. Course the theory of regenerative therapies for humans has been a fact; we are in the process now of making these therapies fast acting and more responsive so longer life is achieved. Since improvements are being made, the theory of human exponential life extension is coming along nicely to one day be a fact.

By no means do I plan to enforce using the word theory/theorize etc, but I doubt grant proposals would be granted if they had “I have faith” written all over them.

We do not take extending life with faith but rather that medical science has shown scientific consistency with extending life – to think that it will fail suddenly and close up shop is absurd.

As for “where I was before I was born?” I was not existent until I could interact with the outside and form my own ideas, theories, facts etc. As for the genetics that constructed my brain, that was not me – axon/dendritic connections do change. The “I” right now is quite secure with the path chosen and I like how I think so this "I" should stay. But I was not the potential me until the brain was able to inertact outside the womb.

Edited by XxDoubleHelixX, 12 June 2003 - 08:17 AM.

[John Schloendorn]

I am interested in why you want to become immortal, or if not immortal, to live for thousands of years?

I will base my defense on the presumption that good and bad exist. I have no idea how their existence is computationally coded or brought about. It is enough to observe that the condition of being human just involves that most states we can be in have this associated property of being good or bad.

From this we can proceed to formulate an argument for living forever.

In my actual life, the good tends to outweigh the bad (by far). Therefor we can say that, on the average, life itself is one of those good states. Whenever I am alive, there is expectable good for me. When I am not alive, there is no expectable good for me. That is why I want to be alive, whenever I happen to have the choice. The more life time I achieve, the more expectable good I achieve. It is not necessary to cry "I don't want to die". I much prefer to argue 'for life' than in an unnecessarily indirect way 'against death'. In fact, I am fond of life, but I do not dread death. This odd asymmetry is because death is the loss of any subject who is capable to tell good and bad. The state of being dead, therefor cannot be bad.

A second, directly undesirable possibility is that my life would change in such a way that the expectable bad increases and the good decreases, until the bad might outweigh the good. Eventually the process of aging will bring about precisely that change. Therefor I do dread aging and the pains involved in the process of dying.

Eventually, the desirable state might be prolonged (or indirectly speaking, both the non-desirable and the undesirable outcomes might be postponed) if we find a way to control the aging process. Thus, in the face of the requirement to go ahead and earn my bread with anything, I decided to do it like XxDoubleHelixX and study those disciplines that yield the highest expectable good in this respect. As a first step, we have to reverse aging. That is all we know today.

To the objection that "The odds are against" us, I can only reply "Sure they are."
For example, many believe that our chances to live forever are extremely small, but finitely above zero. (We simply do not know enough about the universe to rule it out.) And you know what any finite non-zero number makes when multiplied by infinite expectable good.

Of course, this same argument can justify worshipping any deity who might exist to save your soul if you do. The existence of something rather than nothing is a complete mystery. Thus I believe that everything is possible including even the deity that wants to be flattered. Which you actually do is for many a matter of faith. For me it is a matter of guessing chances.

Best Wishes, John.

[tbeal]

I think it's quite reasonable to fear nothingness I am proud that I enjoy life that much. we can't say for sure that there is no spiritual immoratality but it increases the chance of us existing if we persue the thing that we can most easily affect: How long we live